


The Children of the Goat

by UmgubularSlashkilter



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: AU, Dark, F/M, I promise there will be some fluff, Or not, Should I add more tags?, You Decide, angsty fluff, collection, drubbles, future OOC, may be connected, not really cannon, why did i do this to myself
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-25
Updated: 2017-01-25
Packaged: 2018-09-19 23:05:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,110
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9464489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UmgubularSlashkilter/pseuds/UmgubularSlashkilter
Summary: There is a reason Lucifer is uncomfortable with children, deeper than what Detective thinks it is. He feels no need to enlighten her.Please, Dad, let her never understand this part of me.





	

**Author's Note:**

> My take on Lucifer's stay in Hell and the reason he is afraid of children. Head-cannon and non-cannon.

Hell is not what humans think it is. Not for him.

He has not been here for long; enough to be at ease but not enough to even start thinking about calling it home. He knows it, of course, every nook and cranny, every corner and every passageway. He has sworn that he will not be caught unprepared ever again and had systematically studied what was now his domain- for all eternity, if Father was to be believed- to weave protections and shields around it.

All the while, he was finding things and places to be surprised about, unexpected and usually welcome distractions. He is slightly bemused when the net of corridors made from actual, real fire and brimstone ends and turns into a softly glimmering cave, quiet and peaceful, with a lone rose growing in the middle from the hard rocky ground. He is upset when what looked like a garden outside the palace turns out to be made out of the same hard rock, and resigned when he finds out that the mysterious rose in the First Cave is the only living plant in the whole Underworld. He is relieved when he figures out how to stop the sounds of tortured screams from escaping the place he created for them, right next to the Pit.

He is repulsed when he first travels down there. It was the place for those truly gone beyond redemption or understanding, a place for deranged, psychotic scum, the vilest of human souls, so tainted by their deeds that their lights had long since become darker than the eternal night above his empty Kingdom. He weaves hundreds of protections around it, making it truly impenetrable, even for his siblings. It is for those confined to the Pit that he places an enchantment meant to force the mortals to create and execute their own punishments, in order to escape their presence. He becomes a guard then, instead of an executioner, and he can breathe a little lighter even though he cannot shake off the mantle of the punisher.

He creates and perfectes a system, neat and simple, and so very brilliant that he can for a second feel like he is himself again, the favourite son, the maker of the stars, the 

Lightbringer, _Samael_ – and he never wants to forget that feeling, never wants to feel it again.

(he is lying, but it’s alright when it’s only him who can hear the lies)

The souls know their own worst punishments better than him, and the enchantments ensure they get what they deserve. He does not need to even see them anymore. The demons handle the regular souls now, quick and efficient, and so beautifully proud of themselves in front of him. There are many newcomers, and he keeps building more and more levels, going deeper down, and yet he has not even filled all of the original cages in the Pit after a hundred years. It is only when there is a new soul to add to these cages that he ever lays eyes on the prisoners.

So when he first sees an unattended child after almost a full century, he cannot quite hide his surprise. It is not the first child in Hell, not by a long shot, but there is something in the small figure, something wrong with the way it holds itself, in the way it stays so still, in the strange look inside its eyes.

It takes more than it should to notice his pitch-black soul and suddenly he _knows_ why this child is standing so calmly in his path, regarding him through its cold eyes with an unnatural calm around it. They both know who the monster between the two of them is, which one of them is scarier, which would savour tearing the other apart limb by limb, piece by piece, without a shred of doubt or remorse if given the chance. The Devil shudders and takes the small creature to the Pit, the darkest and deepest part of it and places even stronger protections around a tiny cage, holding the most horrifying creature in Hell within it. The child never looks away from him, and when he is turning around to leave the horror behind and prepares himself to try, without any success, to erase the encounter from his mind, it smiles almost serenely and he can feel that gaze on him long after he’s climbed out of the Pit.

He climbs to the surface then, entering the human world for first time after the Fall, the ordeal feeling oddly undramatic and out of place. He finds the hole that used to be the creature’s lair, reeling and recoiling at the tangy taste of darkness on his tongue, oozing from the walls of the small cave. Even he cannot clear all of it and leaves knowing that for decades humans will avoid the place, whispering about it to each other, speaking with their horrified souls, not with their silent tongues.

He spends that evening trembling in his chambers, in front of an unlit fireplace, trying to drown in the memories of his siblings, when they were still infants, entrusted into his care, his to teach, to play with, and to love.

(-a light-brown wing obscures his vision, its owner snoring softly across his chest-)

(-laughter rings in the small clearing, and Gabriel clashes his wooded sword against the exact replica in Uriel’s hands, both children shrieking gleefully, when the wood splinters and then breaks apart after several blows-)

(-little feet stomping on the ground in frustration at Hadraniel’s failure to will his wings to support him for more than a minute-)

(-a pile of smiling children settled on his chest and wings, eagerly awaiting a new story about the star that wasn’t there in the morning-)

Every time he finds a new memory in his mind, the image of a monster in a small body fade further away.

Every time he adds a tiny cage to the row at the bottom of the Pit, the memories resist coming to him more and more.

Until, one day.

One day when they _don’t come at all_.

When even a mention of children, much less a sight of one sends a horrified shiver down his spine and makes his palms turn cold and clammy. He limits his interactions with them, shies away from anything that could remind him of them, almost runs when one touches him, swearing to not let that happen again, and managing to uphold the oath for millennia.

That is, until Beatrice Decker squeezes his legs and refuses to step away from him, sending him into a panic.


End file.
